Tell me not Sweet I am unkinde
by SirynsTear
Summary: Hermione made a promise, one that she was hoping she would never have to fulfill. Now Severus has been arrested and the day of reckoning has arrived. Written for the Summer 2007 SSHG Fic exchange.


The courtroom was cold. It was the kind of cold that cuts deep inside you and chills to the core, almost like the barest whisper of a Dementor's breath across the back of your neck. Or maybe it's just me. The inquisitors must have decided forgo the cage, that Harry had described seeing in Dumbledore's Pensieve, for a large wooden chair with iron restraints to hold down his arms and legs. It looked eerily like the electric chair I had viewed once while on a field trip in primary school. To be honest the whole thing gave me a giant case of the heebee-jeebees.

He had asked me not to attend the trial but I couldn't stay away, no matter how much being there and seeing him like this pained me. I know the verdict was a forgone conclusion; the entire trial was a farce in the worst sense of the word. I could have done without having to watch Harry testify though. 

Of all the people sitting in the courtroom, only Severus and I knew the truth and neither of us could even utter the barest whisper of it, not even under Veritaserum, at least not until Voldydork is dead. No matter how much I wanted to, I could not speak up to clear his name, not even to save his life, or his soul. The tears fell from my eyes as I watched them lead him away. He could have handled a life sentence in Azkaban, at least then there would have been the possibility of his release, but there was no return from a Dementor's Kiss. One night was all I had, one night to say everything that needed to be said. One night to complete the plan I'd made after our last conversation.

_"Hermione, you must."_

"You bastard. I'd have been happy to kill you once, but not now."

"There is no one else I can ask, Hermione, it has to be you. You are the only one I trust to actually keep your word."

"So, I'm your bloody fail-safe?"

"In a sense. Love, I know that what I'm asking of you is hard..."

"Hard? Try insane. Severus, please, if you love me don't ask me to do this. I've never begged for anything in my life, but I'm begging you now. We can figure out something else. There must be some other way, something we've over looked. Something. This does not have to be the only option." My eyes burned and I closed them, trying to keep the tears at bay.

"You know I love you, you silly girl..." His voice was close, soft and full of emotion that only I was fortunate enough to ever hear. "Love, you know there is nothing else. How many hours did we both spend trying to find a way out of the situation that has landed me here?"

The silence was deafening, I knew he was waiting for me to end it, to say something... anything but my voice was frozen in my throat. His hands caressed my face and I could feel him bending nearer to me.

"TELL me not (Sweet) I am unkinde,"

"No. Severus, please!" I whispered.

"That from the Nunnerie, Of thy chaste breast, and quiet minde, To Warre and Armes I flie." He reached out and touched my hand, grasping it before I could pull away. "True; a new Mistresse now I chase, The first Foe in the Field; And with a stronger Faith imbrace A Sword, a Horse, a Shield."

He pulled me closer, and I let him take me into his arms. I swallowed hard. I would not cry, I would not fucking cry. His voice, usually so soothing to me cut deeper than the sharpest blade.

"Yet this Inconstancy is such, As you too shall adore."

The unshed tears choked my voice, until all that was left was a whisper. "I could not love thee (Deare) so much, Lov'd I not Honour more."

I opened my eyes and looked deep into his; there wasn't much time before they came to take him away for the trial. 

"Richard Lovelace. It's a lovely poem, Severus, but we are not talking about you leaving me to fight. You are asking me to take away the future I once dreamed of."

"The dream is dead anyway, there is nothing else to be done. 'Our fate was made thus ere our days were made: Will you fight fortune for so small a grief? But for one thing I were full fain of death. None need to name the thing. Why, what can death do with me fit to fear? For if I sleep I shall not weep awake; Or if their saying be true of things to come, Though hell be sharp, in the worst ache of it I shall be eas'd so God will give me back Sometimes one golden gracious sight of you- The aureole woven flowerlike through your hair, And in your lips the little laugh as red As when it came upon a kiss and ceas'd, Touching my mouth.'" He leaned in and kissed me; it was as if he was trying to pour three years of waiting into just one kiss. Three years of denied passion, three years of love and devotion seared across my lips and deep into my soul.

I would do what he asked, but I would also give him what we both ached for. I made another promise, this one to myself.

I would not send him to his death unloved.

The promise. I had made the promise after I had inadvertently stumbled onto an argument between Severus and the Headmaster last year. It was then that Dumbledore found out about my relationship with Severus. You could certainly say he was shocked; but then you could also say that the French are fond of cheese and be conveying the same level of understatement. Severus and I calmed the Headmaster down by reassuring him that nothing untoward had happened between the two of us. Severus had been quite adamant about us not being intimate until I was of age in both the Muggle and Wizarding worlds and out of school. Well I was out of school, and if this was the only chance I would ever have, I had every intention of taking it. Dumbledore had once told me, when the Polyjuice accident had been reported to him, that if I had not been a Muggle-born I would most likely have been sorted into Slytherin. Which just goes to show you that it wasn't all Severus's influence.

I had bribed Cecil, who was the Auror on duty, to allow me thrice the usual amount of time to visit. I suppose he thought I was some kind of a sick, twisted freak who wanted to shag a Death Eater or something, but I wasn't exactly concerned about his opinion of me. I handed over my wand and he opened the door, telling me to call for him when I was ready to leave.

The room they held him in was dark and slightly dank, though being at home in the dungeons of Hogwarts as he had been I suppose he barely noticed. There was a table against the wall, two chairs, a pallet and a sectioned off loo area. I had expected him to be sitting at the table furiously writing or putting his affairs in order, but it looked as though he had already finished that task. He was stretched out on the pallet, his long form clad in a brand new version of the clothing I had only seen once before on a very ragged Sirius Black. He didn't even turn toward the door when it opened I softly spoke his name to draw his attention. His eyes flew open and he looked at me.

"Hermione, I didn't think you would come."

"Of course I came, how could I not?" He stood up and crossed the small room in three steps, to wrap his arms around me. Just the feel of his strength made the tears spring up in my eyes again.

"Oh, my little love, please don't cry."

His voice soft and sweet in my ear and his body pressed up against mine was almost my undoing. My hands slid up and caressed his face drawing it downwards to me. Our lips brushed against one another, softer than the brush of a butterfly's wing once, twice and then he pulled away and buried his face in my hair.

"Hermione." He said my name, but for once, his voice wasn't controlled. That one word held uncertainty, a question, and a hope.

"This night is for you, Severus, for us. I've waited three years for this moment and I'm not going to let the Ministry in its stupidity, or you in your stubbornness rob me of it"

"I do not trust myself with you."

"Trust yourself?" I asked.

"It's been over three years since the last time I was with a woman, Hermione."

I'm normally quicker than this, but I just couldn't comprehend what he was trying to say. "I still don't understand, Severus."

He pushed away from me crossing to the other side of the room. "I want to fall on you like some ravening beast. There is no gentleness in me tonight."

"Are you saying you don't trust yourself not to..." I searched for a word, but had to settle for, "rape me?"

He nodded. 

I laughed, I couldn't help it. I knew he wouldn't like the laughter, but I just couldn't help it.

His face grew arrogant, distant, eyes cold but still angry. "You laugh?"

"I'm sorry, Severus, I'm not laughing at you." I walked over to him placing my hand on his shoulder. "I've been raped, my love, and believe me when I say that nothing you could ever do to me would compare to that. Rape is not about sex, it's about power and control. You want sex, you just want to fuck. You don't want to be gentle, or romantic... there is nothing wrong with that."

"I couldn't bear it if I reminded you of HIM."

"You won't. This is our night, Severus, whatever you want, whatever you need, take it."

"Take it? Take you, you are willing to let me fuck you, not make love or have sex, or even shag, but just push you up against the wall and fuck you with no regard to your needs?"

"Well, the wall might not work, I think you are too tall, but yes, that is exactly what I'm saying."

He turned so quickly I stumbled, not realising that I had been putting so much pressure on his back. He jerked me against his body hard his hand coming up to bury itself in my hair. A sound came from his throat and deep in his chest, a sound that ended in the irrepressible bass growl. He stared down at me, his face filled with a raw, naked lust, something separate, primal and slightly surreal. That ravening beast he had spoken of. He felt so big, so thick, against the front of me like nothing I had ever known. The press of him, against me, the strength of his hands as they held me immobile made me shudder against him. My body wanted to fight against his grip, but he'd given me a choice, and I had chosen. His hand loosened in my hair, and he jerked my robe free, the fabric fluttered to the floor around my feet. His hand slid under my skirt until his fingers found the edge of my knickers. He balled his hand into the silk, and I had but the space of a breath to brace myself, before he ripped them from my body. The sheer violence of his lust made me wet. The feeling of being trapped, helpless against his strength, his lust, was almost overwhelming. My eyes shuttered closed at the effort of not struggling in his grasp.

He whispered against my face, and I could not draw back enough to focus on his face. "Are you sure you want this?"

His voice promised no gentleness, no compromise. I knew the kind of sex he was offering, the knowledge as instinctual as breathing, and the thought of it tightened things low in my body, drew another small sound from my throat. "Yes," I whispered, "yes."

There was a brief moment where I felt him glide against my flesh and then he was thrusting into me. He fought against the tightness of my body, forcing his way inside. I'd given him permission for this, I wanted him, even needed him, but with no foreplay there was still pain with the pleasure. A burning, almost tearing pressure wrenched a cry from my throat that was filled with both pain and desire. When he had sheathed himself inside me as far as he could go, he whispered, "Merlin, you're so tight."  
He drew himself out of me, part way, then thrust back in, and after that there was nothing but his body inside mine. His need was immense, desperate and fierce and so was he. He thrust into me as hard and as fast as he could. The sound of his flesh colliding with mine punctuated every thrust of his body. It forced sounds from my throat, from the sheer force of it, and from the sensations as he moved inside me, over me, through me. My body opened to him. My feet were no longer touching the ground and still he pounded himself into me, as if he were trying to force his way not just into my body, but through it and out the other side. A tightness began to grow deep inside my core, and my breath came in harsh pants. Flesh into flesh, so hard and fast with such strength that it danced that thin line between pleasure and pain. I kept expecting him to finish his need in one long glorious burst, but he didn't. He hesitated, using large strong hands to move my hips along the table, a small adjustment as if he were trying to find just the right spot, then he thrust inside me again in one long hard movement, and I cried out. The tightness began to grow, swell, like the tide; as he stroked himself over and over that spot deep within me. I heard his breathing quicken, his thrusts taking on an urgency, harder, faster, until I cried out with the force of it, and still he didn't stop. I felt him falter, the steady rhythm of his body lost for a moment, and a shudder swept through his body from head to toe, grinding his body into mine and my world exploded. The warmth swelled between my legs rising up in a wave of heat that spilled up my body and burst like a torrent through me, pulsing waves crested deep inside my body, making my whole body convulse; only his hands on my hips kept me still, kept me whole. Kept me from bursting through my skin and becoming nothing more than pure light, pure pleasure. Screams--deafening, wordless, thoughtless, formless--screams without measure spilled out of my mouth as fast as I could draw breath. Severus cried out above me, sending his cries twining into the ether after mine.

He lifted me in his arms and carried me to the pallet on the other side of the small room. He brushed the hair from my face, his eyes alight with a wonder I had never seen before. I lifted my hands and cupped his face between them smiling into his eyes. "I love you, Severus."  
His words were lost in my hair, but I knew they were the same.

The urgency now removed, our last time together was soft and gentle, full of poignant touches and murmurs of love, devotion, and wonder. A lifetime of memories were made in that last hour, to personal and close to ever be committed to parchment or Pensieve. The last of the Cleaning Charms were cast, our clothing repaired, and the stage was set. The locket he had sent me for my 18th birthday had held a ring that had been reduced to fit inside. For the first time, I shook the ring out and returned it to its original size and handed it to him. He took my hand and reverently slid the ring onto my finger kissing the back of my hand before releasing it back to me. I turned and grabbed the bag that had fallen to the floor when I entered the room, and grasped his own hand in turn. I slipped the ring I retrieved onto his finger and drew him close, one last kiss, just one last sweet memory to carry with me.

I drew back from that kiss and whispered into his ear, "Invoke the ring after I am gone, the incantation is Aufero Aer. Make sure there is no one else in the room, as the radius is about 3 feet. It won't be quick but it will be relatively painless. I swear I will see justice done, someday you will be remembered as the hero you are. I love you."  
I pushed myself away from him and walked to the door, calling for Cecil, I heard his softly spoken 'thank you' as I walked out the door. He died later on that night.

It has been years now, Harry defeated Voldemort in June of the year, and I began my crusade to clear Severus's name. Ironically, the day they handed down the decision I couldn't be there; I was giving birth to our daughter, Suriah. She was sorted into Slytherin this year at Hogwarts. He would have been so proud.

**Severus Tobias Snape**  
January 9, 1959 - February 3,1998  
Your Sacrifice is remembered always.  
_Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity.  
Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences  
and endowments of the human mind.  
Marcus Tullius Cicero_  
Fin 


End file.
